Well, I listed 4 names, yours included. Pure probability dictates I should be right be at least one (assuming that we have at least 3 scum in the game).

Maybe I saw something in the other players, maybe I am imagining it. What I find most amusing this game is that one of the most town players in my eyes is JMich. I never think he is town, even when he is! I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing...

However, there are general things I see as scum tells. It has to do with the tenor and presentation of posts. I could dissect it and explain it, but I don't think it would do any good. It isn't a 'gut feeling', it is based on data I could point to, but I don't think it would be convincing to most others. I just tend to organize and process information differently than most people (I am not better or worse at it necessarily, but I am certainly an outlier). Worse, if I do explain it, and people actually do understand what I am getting at, then that might make the entire method less effective going forward.

But, yeah, Leonard03 is totally a horrible person. I heard he went baby seal clubbing. Horrible; he didn't even invite me along!

I saw that.

It is interesting you describe it that way. I was struck by something that happened last week.

After saying he was going to be gone for a week in August, as the game starts Leon switches and says he's gone for a week NOW. I mean, that wouldn't be normal at my job since all my travel is planned well in advance. But I know there are jobs where that happens. So ok. Or maybe it was planned for July all along and he just confused July and August - "I know it's one of the Caesar months!"

Anyway, 3-4 days and 400 posts go by, with no peep from Leon. I make a comment on voting for the absent guy, which I took heat for (not from Wyrm, even though someone later suggested he'd "scolded" me). No harm no foul, and part of my assumption was that we'd be voting, y'know, soon. Ha ha haha! What a newb.

But, seriously, like 3-5 hours later Leon pops in with his "I'm at a Tim Horton's just popping in for Timbits and wi-fi!" post (#448) and unvotes Cristi and swings to Kryp. Ironically his argument is that Kryp is "saying nothing." Is he not a Stoppard fan, then?

Doesn't come back in til #680. Maybe he was just busy, but it's not like there's only one Tim Horton's in Canada. It just seemed kind of weird that the one hint of FoS invoked him, in his travels somewhere where hotels don't have wi-fi and there's a lone Tim Horton's outpost connecting one to the bigger world.

Probably just a coincidence, but it did strike me that the one time he was discussed deeper than "Where is that guy" or "When is he coming back" happens to be within hours of the one time he pops in to check in all week. "Fly on the wall" was the phrase that crossed my mind then, which is why Kryp's vote reminded me.

I think the thing that really makes him look guilty is that he didn't bring back Timbits to share.

I'm not afraid to confess I like Timbits. Anyway, in the 6+ days he has been present and accounted for overall, would anyone like to summarize what he has added or put on the table so far? Maybe Leonard himself? And based on his logic voting for Kryp, why is what's good for the gander not good for the goose?

(On that note, I'll be offline almost all day Sat and Wed of next week for a trip planned back in March.)

Just ask Ryan O'Reilly! Those donut shops are practically jumping out and mugging people, these days!

That's it, eh?

Vote Leonard03

I just getting home from work and need to read what has been posted today, I will be posting in a bit with my thoughts.

I will make one more note on the daychat bit for anyone who finds it suspicious, because I decided to think it through for kicks.

Start with post 846/847, where JMich notes it's unusual (the first person to actually clarify), and I thank him for his response. That is to all appearances the moment where I realize I was probably a big idiot making a false assumption based just on what I knew of the prior game.

Now let's play Xeno, but instead of the duality of time and space, we'll look at the four parables covering this game having daychat or not, and me being scum or not.

P1: I am not scum, and there is no daychat. Clearly I would have no in-game basis to know whether there was daychat. Any speculation there is would be incorrect, so the basis of my knowledge is irrelevant, being wrong.

P2: I am not scum, and there is daychat. I would have no in-game knowledge. I might assume correctly that there is, but not based on direct observed information, and in any case statement of my hypothesis, if assumed as a statement of my own guilt, would lead the viewer in turn to falsely conclude I was scum.

P3: I am scum, and there is no daychat. Could that be a useful gambit somehow? Maybe, but I don't see it. It attracts attention for no purpose I can see. You'd have to dig deep into WIFOM for this to make any sense, I think.

P4: I am scum, and there is daychat. If that's the case, why does the rest of the team not tell me to shut up about it, certainly at the point Yog calls me out for it I could have clammed up and just said "mea culpa" but no, I went on assuming I was right for what, a couple hundred more posts until someone politely corrected me.

I mean, it's no tortoise and the hare or arrow in flight, but I think this logical puzzle will dazzle scholars ages hence. There are no other options - it's one of those 4. Which seem the most likely when you actually stop and look?

Now, from where I stand, either 1 or 2 is correct, but you can't know that, obviously. But I don't think either 3 or 4 hold water as a logical proposition. Though certainly, if anyone wants to suggest a fashion in which 3 or 4 would hold water, I'm all ears. Errr...eyes.

Well, it's a good post overall, but clearly it's P4 that is the only one worth considering. I would say that if this were the correct quadrant to describe what happened, my guess would actually be that your Scumbuddies would advise you to go silent on the issue and hope everyone forgets about it. I don't think you would be pushed to "mea culpa" at all. Why attract more attention to the slip? Better for Scum to just ignore it and hope nobody noticed.

Who corrected you? I do not remember anyone correcting you on it but I could have missed it.

Ya, I figured there wasnt any point in posting "busy right now, more later" so I didn't.

Fair enough, but I still think that raises the question why I brought the notion up repeatedly from the start of the game until Trent asked and built it into theories. I don't think I used the phrase "day chat" much if at all, since I don't recall when I became aware it had a moniker, since you know, I assumed it was just the norm.

#16 I use the word communication
#51 coordination
etc.

Though I do realize now some of my more recent defense in that angle is in posts I only put up in part, or haven't posted at all yet, so perhaps not posting my Trent theory in full sooner will actually come back to bite me, ironically. On Saturday part of my treatise was this:

"But trent also can’t afford to be too clean, and up til that point he’s likely too clean, since as scum get serious about deciding on who their NK will be, I think his team realizes if he wakes up alive on the dawn of Day 2 people might seriously wonder why. He’s arguably the farthest in the group from being lynched, there’s no roles on the table yet (so that basis is seemingly random), and as a top player he’s a threat if he’s town. Cristi/Kryp/Jmich are threats as well if town, but JMich in particular would likely be farther down the list as a viable day kill. If you’re mafia, you NK Trent, right? I mean, how do you not?"

Keep in mind that's from page 2 of a 2-page treatise, so I'm leaving a lot of the build-up and rationale out.

Now, you can pick that argument apart for other reasons (and Trent certainly should - he's been quiet lately), and certainly you can question if I really wrote it Saturday rather than just now, but it is consistent with what I've breadcrumbed about thinking there was another reason for the hammer. And while the gambit doesn't rely solely on the notion that they were communicating ("his team is realizes" rather than "Trent realizes" clearly presumes communication), it is a weaker without that assumption.

Also somewhat ironically, you responded to my post 16, and instead of flipping out on my on the "communication" line when I made it then, as you are now, you flipped out on me on the 'which game are you confusing this with' question. So instead of clearing up the notion then, it lingered for two weeks. And now you think it's relevant.

If it's scummy now, why wasn't it scummy in post 16? Are you just fishing, perhaps? I still think the more reasonable explanation is that I was confused all game long, rather than repeatedly slipping and having a team fail to notice or correct the slip. But of course, your vote is your own. If you are town, you would be making a mistake, however.

May the Gogbear have mercy.

That actually helped me find what I was looking for to defend myself, thanks. Look at this sequence:

807: Bler: "E.g. if JMich were scum, and one assumes scum have an active channel during the day, JMich would know dedo's role and they'd hoped to tease out some third person as the counter who wisely stayed hidden."

842: JMich: “P.S. It's similar to saying that scum can daychat. That is also an irregularity, scum can usually only chat at night. While it's not impossible for them to be able to chat during the day, we do usually work under the assumption that they can't. Same with masons and neighbors.”

845: Bler: "I was unaware of that, thank you for the clarification. I have repeatedly made the assumption that they were daychatting. I won't pretend to understand what masons/neighbors do or how they impact strategy.

As one other point of clarification, would one assume scum would have a N0 chat window? Would they just be notified of their team's identities, or do they go into D1 as blind as town?"

846: JMich: "Usual case is that their role PM tells them their teammates, and usually their roles. N0 chat depends on mod."

Now, I don't know for a fact that JMich's P.S. in 842 was @bler, but given that I'm the one who'd mentioned it multiple times, it seemed his clear intent to me.

JMich can presumably confirm/deny it was pointed at me if he cares to. That's also a good example of when I'd brought up the notion recently, and particularly well after yog's questioning me on it in #687. Again, I didn't really know it had a distinct name to refer to it by. So I've referred to it in a variety of ways I think.

Thus, I think parable 4 is hard to put stock in since right there in 807 I'm saying it again. But that's just my opinion.

So I'll go ahead and make at least the core of my Trent case, even though I will say that I find it a bit less compelling Saturday as I've gone through more counter-arguments. As noted somewhere above, I don't find the case that he hammered fast to silence Wyrm all that compelling since I think Wyrm had said everything he had to say plus some.

The case for blocking a claim could hold water, but only if one thinks Wyrm claiming "trainee doctor" would have stopped the vote. The fast hammer might have, ironically, helped town. Say Wyrm does claim "property owner" and somehow walks from the lynch - does the arsonist instead go after him as a known target rather than dedo as a guess? Dedo was a lucky break for us. Trent couldn't have known that, but it strikes me as a nice side benefit. Still, back to the point, Trent says a claim wouldn't have changed his vote, and no one has made an "I definitely would have changed my vote!" claim, so I'm not hanging a hat on that one for now either. I mean, I would have considered it, but then I'm a bleeding heart and already wasn't on the wagon for that reason.

Now, my case that it was scum basically relies on a couple assumptions, and arguably could well be tunnel vision. I think I mentioned that roughly 10-12 hours before wyrm's lynch I was off the wyrm and JMich wagons, but made lazy questions to both just to keep the play going if town was convinced it was useful. Meanwhile I was re-reading a few people's entire Day 1 plays. And at the same time contemplating who I would lynch if I were scum.

Those two lines of pursuit lined up very nicely - either as synchronicity or tunnel vision time will tell. My top 3 was basically 1) Trent 2) Trent 3) Cristi. Which is also the reason I was initially open to considering Cristi as the backup if Trent was clean, but I think I'm pretty much off that too. The theory that Kryp was targeted because of his vig response throws some water on that - there is a viable argument that Kryp rose above other threats rather than other targets moving down the list by dint of being scum.

Trent today has also made the claim that the Kryp NK could be random to throw us off, which I generally don't buy, but...ironically if Trent is town, it threw us off. I wouldn't have proposed Kryp was guilty if Trent died.

Not to say people wouldn't have looked at Trent's hammer but for me, but I started the wagon with a pretty big high ceiling and made room for others to wander under the Trent-tent with low risk to themselves. And I think he was already a bit teed off by my approach by the time Cristi and JMich laid in. Again, maybe that seeming anger is a nice cover, and maybe it's real. It would be nice if he'd come back and talk about other things even if he doesn't want to weigh in on why he might look guilty to some.

So in a bit more detail why Trent? #1 - his day 1 game up until the hammer, viewed in isolation is beautiful. At that point he's cleaner than Mother Teresa's lingerie. While Trent is right scum don't want to give town anything, if Trent is town and scum NK him, that doesn't give us anything. Conversely, if you look at JMich's NK criteria: lynchability, danger to scum, and info gained/revealed, Trent is near the top in danger, pretty impermeable to lynch (a bit of OMGUS, but nothing you could hang a hat on) compared to similarly dangerous alternatives like Kryp or JMich, and there's not much on the table in terms of roles. Even cristi had more FoS.

Assume Trent is scum - how does he answer the question on Day 2 of "Hey, why was ____ killed and not that guy?" The hammer is his answer. It looks just scummy enough to put him at least in the discussion for guilty. Now, as noted, this theory works better if you assume scum are talking and discussing who they're going to lynch at this point, but Trent could arguably come to it himself - he's a bright guy.

Now, this could all be total coincidence. But before I even knew Wyrm was going to be lynched or that Trent was going to be the hammer, I was wondering how he was going to make it through the night, or explain how if he did. Why does he hammer fast in this theory? Not because of Wyrm at all, but because the wagon surged to 7 very quickly, and he has to be on it. If he was paying attention (okay, probably a reach) he would be aware Wyrm had dared me to be the hammer, and it was my normal time to login - I just happened to sleep in an extra 20 minutes that morning. If not me, there were what...4 others available?

If he is scum, it was really the perfect gambit if it goes unnoticed or is only addressed at level 1 - level 2 thinking.

I wrote a bit more but I'll stop there, since I really have to get off-line for a bit and do some work and trip preparation.

Both Day starts and Night starts are valid for forum Mafia. On GOG, we mostly do Day starts, where Mafia is only told who their scumbuddies are, but are otherwise as in the dark as town on Day 1. Flubbucket's Milk game was a bit of a middle ground, where investigative roles got a Night 0, but nobody else (including the two Mafia GodFather's) got one. His game was most certainly not the average game, however.

Ok, so apparently a whole bunch of people are think I'm super lurky and not contributing. Well maybe they are right, but I am trying to do my best. I have been trying to figure out what is happening with the roles. In terms of the other discussion that had been going on, I haven't said anything as I have nothing to contribute. Does it really help anyone if I say "JMIch seems spot on here, the trentonlf's vehement argument against waiting for a claim just seems like an over reaction to me."
You say I'm doing "jack squat" well, if I have nothing new I won't say anything. I'm not finding it hard to post, just hard to add anything.

I have already said this was an honest mistake. I would consider what you are suggesting cheating, and I would not do that. It was not a business trip, it was a holiday, at a cottage. I didn't get confused what month it was, I knew it was very soon, otherwise I would have been of the same mind as Vitek, I would probably already be dead by the beginning of August. I already said I was sorry for this, you could have kicked me out if you all wanted.


Ok so you all want me to contribute something more, but on what? We basically didn't learn anything from last night's lynch. Bookwyrm was town (role being a trainee doctor/property owner), so apparently he was just trying out some different style of play. It might have been in the hopes of getting more info for later, but I don't see that it did give us anything. I thought he was scummy, so how can I be suspicious of someone else who did the same? I don't see what we can learn.

The only other solid information we have to go on was last nights two kills, one of town Krypsyn (who has since come back to life, and was an incompetent vigilante) and one of scum dedoporno (who was a compulsive firefighter). The odd thing about this is the way dedo died, by fire. This has suggested an arsonist. Since this is usually not a town role it raises some interesting questions about who the arsonist actually is. It obviously cannot be scum, that would make absolutely no sense. So my suggestion about the third party arsonist, as well as the town firefighter.

What about Krypsyn coming back to life? Is this maybe a balancing mechanic to help out town? This might indicate we are up against some tough stuff, which backs up the third-party arsonists. It could also mean we have a larger than usual number of scum.

Sharing PM flavour? I did what I could, I can't really share anymore as it has to do with my role (yes, I have some sort of role) which I don't really feel like sharing right now. Another interesting thing about flavour is that we did not actually hang Bookwyrm, we just kicked him out. So wouldn't it make more sense for him to be able to come back? Not sure if there are any clues there.

It will be interesting to see if there are two kill on N2 as well. This high mortality rate would back up Vitek's comment that I would be dead by August.

What and how did JMich know about the arsonist. He obviously had some info, he could be a firefight (town or even scum, though I think that's pretty darn unlikely), or he could be an arsonist himself. Or maybe a role cop? Some people have noted that the game took a little while to start, possible because some people had N0 actions. Maybe JMich was one of them.

What is bler's idea on trentonlf? He apparently is fairly convinced that trent had some other reason for hammering quickly. What could that be? He was trying to avoid a claim? How does that make sense, as there are flips. Maybe he wanted discussion to finish quickly. Why would that be? Had one of his scum buddies (or himself) made a slip and he didn't want it to be noticed? Maybe he just wanted to get a lynch done so he could use a night action. Maybe he thought Bookwyrm had something coming that might convince people to get off him, and trentonlf is an arsonist who somehow knew that Bookwyrm was a property owner and had to be killed. It is interesting that in the lynch flavour it is obvious that Bookwyrm had a store in town, there is nothing of the sort for Krypsyn or dedo, they weren't property owners. None of these strike me as particularly likely, so maybe bler has something else.

Anyway, I think that's enough for now.